This is NOT a “crisis”

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I think a lot of the wrongheaded thinking on both sides of the discussion about the “economic crisis” is that people keep calling it a “crisis”. This is a word that’s abused almost as much as the word “tragedy”. A crisis is a short, sharp event or series of events. And when it’s done, things get back to normal. If — as I strongly suspect — the capitalist system is collapsing into a much smaller economic ball (a collapsing star, if you will), then the unemployment numbers and the nosediving housing situation and the freezing of formerly free-flowing credit are nothing more (or less) than the new normal. Perhaps, going forward, 10% + unemployment is going to be normal (it already is in the EU). Perhaps, going forward, those houses that popped in “value” from $500K to 1.5 mil in a few years will stay at their real value (say, $200K)and never regain their former puffed-up “value”. Perhaps, going forward, credit of all kinds will not be freely available to one and all, and the engine of American consumerism — which has always, at its base, been built on the mad flow of credit — will slow down permanently to the more sedate levels we saw when people put things on layaway instead of whipping out their Platinum Card.

Perhaps this is the new normal. Perhaps this is how we live from now on. Perhaps.

15 comments

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    • Joy B. on July 16, 2009 at 19:36

    …economic collapse for so long I figured I’d never see it. Now that I see it, I’ve just gotta laugh at the folly of printing money to give to the greedheads who got us into this mess, as if they aren’t criminals or something. Eventually and inevitably, We The People will get by on whatever medium of exchange means something where we live. In-house (country) exchange on paper will still work to pay the bills. As some economist said once (Galbraith), no nation in debt to itself is in any danger of collapse. The Chinese, on the other hand, may decide not to pour good gold after bad to support our oil wars. That would be okay with me too.

    • Inky99 on July 16, 2009 at 22:13

    and be part of the statistic.  Why not?

    It’s the new “thing”.

    I’m a trend-setter.

  1. Money is being taken from he wrong people and

    is being given to the wrong people.

    h/t TAE

  2. as a way to describe a break in normalcy where we could see wither a return to the way things were or see them get much worse and turn into a tragedy. But it will most likely be due to the moral flaw of weak political will, that will, or already has, depending on who you talk to, take us down to the new lower expectations normal.

    Ever thought that a person saying a crisis is an opportunity can sound like something a dumb ass would say without an explanation?

    The thought just flew through my mind.

    Anyways . . . you know you are comparing a U3 unemployment rate, that registers just those who have been working a full time job and lose it, which after a short period they no longer are counted as unemployed, to a European employment rate that includes the underemployed and the chronically unemployed?

     

  3. The US statistics undercount actual unemployment, using EU methodology the US rate would probably be 15-16%.

  4. it’s not going to stay this way, but it’s the tipping point now.

    • ANKOSS on July 17, 2009 at 18:07

    The greedheads and grifters are betting on feudalism, with slow immiseration of the majority of the population allowing for the continued concentration of wealth. But I think even the dumbest TV-addled American will reach a breaking point and throw off the neo-feudal yoke. In a few years, we will get a resolution, but it is going to be a very bumpy ride.

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